This week brings with it my 30th birthday, and officially exit the 'under-30s' category. I cannot speak for others my age, but I find it hard to believe that 'most' of us 'voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984 and the first George Bush in 1988', given that I was two years old for the first, and six for the second.

Then again, writers at The Economist are of a different breed than we mere mortals. Perhaps our correspondent was more attune to presidential politics at that age than I was.

Obama has been nothing but a liar throughout his four year disastrous occupancy. He makes Carter look like a good President.
His incompetence, unwillingness to lead, socialist policies and race baiting and division have led to the worst economy in 70 years
They need to go after young relatively uninformed voters who have not really worked and are still brainwashed from the indoctrination of the liberal school systems

One of the most interesting things about Obama as a leader and president is the transformation he has gone through as president. In the last election, he was a dynamic figure with amazing rhetoric who inspired young people, but a lot of people are getting concerned that his time in the Oval Office may have burnt out this aspect of his leadership style, and this might hurt him with regards to the youth vote. One of the most insightful articles I've read about him recently, similar to this, was Jonathan Schell's "The New Obama", which talks about some of the changes in Obama over the past 4 years. (http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-transformation-of-barack...). If you have the time, read it, it's a very quick and easy read.

Freedom is extremely valuable and precious to all Americans. Some have even placed the phrase Live Free or Die on their state flag. Many American service men and women have given their lives to protect our freedom. Now it is incumbent on every citizen to share freedom’s burden. These rights have been won throughout regional and local wars. Yet, these gifts are not permanent unless we exercise continual vigilance day and night.

Today's youth are weak and wimpy. They do as they are told. They do not question authority. All their professors are left wing liberal progressive democrats...so they mindlessly vote for left wing liberal progressive democrats. No independent thought. No ability to question the indoctrination they receive from their government employee professors. Sheep.

Since you want to generalize about entire generations, perhaps your generation (I'm assuming your older) should take responsibility for how today's youth turned out.

After all, your generation either raised today's youth and failed, or raised their parents and failed. The blame eventually falls back on you one way or another.

Of course, older people have been complaining about "today's youth" for most of recorded history, and despite that standards of living have improved overall during that time. It's probably best to just tune out the whining of curmudgeons.

True. It all started with the hippie generation who are today in their 60s and 70s. They were the first all-about-me generation who begat the 2nd generation of all-about-me's, who are now in their 40s and 50s, who begat the 3rd generation of all-about-me's, now in their teens and 20's. Each generation more clueless and selfish than the last. Those smart enough to think for themselves are an ever dwindling group in this country.

It's not just academia, our media is also incredibly liberal and biased. From Hollywood to the NYTimes, CNN, MSNBC, PBS and all the major networks and newspapers. FoxNews is the only exception and it is in a lonely world, the object of scorn by all other media outlets. Having a*holes like Bill O'Reilly on it doesn't help.

I was watching coverage of Hurricane Sandy the other day on MSNBC(only channel available where I was) and they did not miss a single opportunity to heap praise on Obama while blasting at Mitt Romney for "campaigning like nothing happened" when he didn't even show up anywhere to campaign. I was appalled. Never mind objectivity, the media no longer even feels they have a responsibility to tell the truth.

Romney opposes a $1 increse in tax revenue for every decrease of $10 in expenditures. We either volutarily get our deficit/debt under control: or sequester kicks in--automatic cuts to defense and social programs; or we look like Greece. Yet Romney even budgedted an increse in military spending. Romney's defense of not raising the defecit/debt is by cooking the books over 0.5% of real GDP growth, more than Obama forcast, to nearly 4% RGDP increase; even after cutting Obama's stimulous spending.

Romney needs to come and say i will withdraw all the troops in afganistan to stand a chance against obama, who made a false promise to do so. Obama needs to explain why he withdraw troops from iraq and why there are still troops in afganistan until now.

The article puts in parenthesis a significant issue -- '(Curiously, though, turnout was barely up on 2004)'.

Then I read mditda below -- and understand the difficulty I had in my 'confused' youth. But the choice was pretty simple. Republicans have been able to blame the Democrats for the flagrant fiscal disregard they have to controlling budgets and spending. Reagan offered an alternative to Carter in the form of 6% government spending deficits, while carter offered something under 2% deficits. It would be easier to control spending from the American center than from the radical right wing.

A vote for the Rebublicans is a vote for the (still) racists South that switched from 'old-time' Dems to racist George Wallace to the Republican party. A vote for the Republicans is a vote for the control-freaks of the Tea Party who mix so well with the control freaks of the right-wing nuts who call themselves Christian, but who have a particualarly un-Christian problem with hating other human beings -- gays are the example, but this hate is heaped on immigrants, city folk, and anyone who dares to disagee with them. These are the ones advocating the fratricidal etiquette 'RINO' to beat their party comrades into submission.

The advice to the young is vote your conscience, and work to keep spending down with normal people. The current Republicans have no reasonable or valid suggestion on how to reduce rediculous deficits -- and they never have. From one form of voodoo economics to the next, all their proposals that gain popular support are simply delusional. Then they vote out their centrist party members who dare suggest anything reasonable.

The choice is simple, no matter how much you disagree with this policy or that from the current president.

In response to the final paragraph of this article (from a 23 year old reader): In the framework of this* article, it's next to impossible for me to argue that one candidate is quantitatively better than the other. The campaign has been a series of vague talking points and party-line platitudes without verifiable detail. Candidate A's opinions are "evolving"; Candidate B's opinions flat out change depending on the audience. John Stewart and Bill O'Reilly, entertainers by trade, provided more substantive debate in one hour than the men campaigning for the President of the United States offered in three showings.

How do I quantify the value of equal rights for my gay friends? How do I weigh my abhorrence of government-prescribed values with my fiscally conservative economic worldview? How am I expected not to be disenfranchised by an election in which I disagree vehemently with both candidates on a number of issues that are significant to me?

To this line of rhetorical questioning, my "more experienced" (certainly not "older") friends and colleagues launch off on the same lecture: elections are about voting for the lesser of two evils. Despite being well informed and highly involved, the only conclusion I've reached is that the candidates represent different evils (metaphorically speaking) of unknown quantity.

You are much too young to be so cynical. You would do well to read the current biography of Mitt Romney. If you are still undecided after doing so, that is your right. You might also check out Jean Edmonds piece at CNN.com. You have seen Obama with your own eyes. Romney does not self aggrandize. Read the book. Make an informed decision.

Responses like this are part of the reason for my disillusionment. Rather than address my concerns, your reply condescendingly brushes them off as cynicism. You present your candidate of choice in a manner suggesting that, if only I read more of his marketing material, I'd surely accept his goals and ideals as mine. I stomached 50 pages of The Real Mitt Romney before tiring of a political biographer in thrall to his subject.

Side note: Who makes a voting decision based on a candidate's self-aggrandizing tendencies?

Disagreement is good - I don't attend many family events where there aren't disagreements over political and economic issues - but no one gets too bent out of shape about it. It's just a dialogue and exchange of facts and opinions.

If you dispute any of the facts above - please specify. If you don't agree with the (perhaps aspirational) assumption that educated people can look past superficial characteristics into a candidates actual history, consistency (or lack thereof) and performance when given a position of responsibility, when making a decision - well, by the look of this election, you appear to be right (pardon the expression). It is no secret that most of the GOP didn't want Romney to win the nomination - but money talks - especially post Citizens United.

So many people seem to be voting for the party of their daddy, church, or friends without really understanding how the candidates proposed policies will impact them or assessing the probability that he will even try to do as he promises - particularly when his positions on key issues seem to flip flop depending on what his audience wants to hear.

If you're a Romney supporter because you make over 250K, or your a Mormon, or you want to get into another war and maintain the current one (reasonable if you work for a defense contractor), or you really feel the need to control women's healthcare decisions, or you want to eliminate tax deductions for mortgage payments and charitable donations because homeowners and charities piss you off - even though you think multinationals that export jobs overseas need additional tax cuts to add to their already absurd margins - cool. Just say so.

But realize that a Romney win is projected to result in a stock market drop. Realize that historically, Republicans tend to increase the national debt as a percentage at more than twice the rate of their Democratic counterparts - check presidentialdebt.org. Realize that a high marginal tax rate on the richest Americans has ALWAYS correlated with national prosperity. Maybe because it discourages incentives for moral hazard and rent seeking - I don't know exact causation but it works. Realize that the only Jobs Romney has ever created were for foreign workers - not Americans. Realize also that Romney's record in Massachusetts is dismal. He speaks of balanced budgets but neglects to mention it is a MA Constitutional requirement. He speaks of lowering the unemployment rate in MA and neglects to mention that it was primarily attributed to people moving to neighboring states for work.

America's youth aren't misguided...they are sheep. All of their professors are left wing liberal progressive democrats...the professors tell these youth sheep how to think...and guess what...that's how they think. Sheep.

Conservatives are sheep. They believe what their ignorant pastors and biased FOX pseudo-news tell them. Todd Akin is a good example of a poorly educated idiot who believes everything without checking [oh, he checks his bible, but science never].

It's better to be educated by professors who are socially progressive than by those who think Leviticus is anything but barbarism [yes I tried to read it, but there is too much murder and persecution for a humane individual to take--except those into S&M or other perversions like Fundamentalism].

I have run into precisely 3 doctrinaire Marxist professors on no fewer than 6 campuses, and saying that our good colleges and universities are overrun by them is hogwash. This idea is put forward by the troglodytes who consider evolution and social science to be dangerous leftism.

I spent far too many years in higher education (albeit wonderfully awesome years) and my professors did tend to be pretty liberal and vocal about it, even in reddest-of-the-red Alabama. Therefore, I don't think the curmudgeon is entirely wrong - he just takes it to an unreasonable extreme.

As an aside, the part of the link that is interesting to me is the political difference between non-academic social scientist and natural scientists. Their views are almost a mirror image. Is there something about the more math-intensive natural sciences that pulls people to the right, or perhaps it is that their average income is higher than social scientist. Physicians also tend to lean conservative, which I didn't expect.

The reasons natural scientists tend to lean right are because they a) tend to be smarter/more logical and therefore can think for themselves rather than subscribe to idealogies enmasse, b) come from stable families that encourage hard work and self reliance from an early age, and c) work in higher income fields therefore sensitive to taxes.

The reason the social "scientists" tend to lean left is because they are the exact opposite in each case.

My knowledge of campuses is confined to northern ones [which I had assumed would be more likely to be infested with Marxists]. I was forced to change universities during the post-Kent State turmoil by some very nasty, malicious dogmatic Marxists. So I do not like that breed at all.
The university I moved too had demonstrations led by Marxists, but of a less nasty stripe. They left me alone [and vice versa], so I know that all Marxists are no more alike than fundamentalist Christians. I try to remember not to regard all as the same*.
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I have noticed that engineers appear to be less likely to favor social programs. I suspect that they are also less likely to be generous privately.
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*The OT is pretty clear that we should be "our brother's keeper."
When asked about what to do if someone asks for a shirt, Jesus said give him also your coat. When asked whether they should pay taxes, Jesus said, "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". Jesus chased the merchants and money lenders from the temple.
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While not all fundamentalists are hypocrites and Pharisees, those who oppose Pres. Obama for doing the above are not heeding what Jesus said. Those who go to megachurches with commercial offerings are doing what made Jesus fairly angry. Jesus qualifies as a Socialist, so those who condemn Socialism, also condemn Him, that they claim to follow. This means that they can be considered not only hypocrites and Pharisees, but also blasphemous.

Uh, yeah, that was the young. I think more of Ron Paul, the Tea Party, and right-wing nuts that call themselves conservative christian. But yes, there are similarities between these gorupings an those you mention.

"If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not Conservative by 40, you have no brain." -Churchill

I think a lot of it has to do with when and if people settle down, get married, and have children.

People tend to want to be unencumbered by restrictive laws and norms when seeking a mate, and therefore are repelled by social conservatism.

Married people with children tend to want stability, a safe environment to raise their children, and to protect them from "negative" social influences while they develop. They tend to be the more socially conservative.

Looking back I noticed a personal shift rightward starting with when I decided that I wanted children, then again when I married and took myself off the dating market, then yet again when my children were born.

"If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not Conservative by 40, you have no brain." -Churchill

I think a lot of it has to do with when and if people settle down, get married, and have children.

People tend to want to be unencumbered by restrictive laws and norms when seeking a mate, and therefore are repelled by social conservatism.

Married people with children tend to want stability, a safe environment to raise their children, and to protect them from "negative" social influences while they develop. They tend to be the more socially conservative.

Looking back I noticed a personal shift rightward starting with when I decided that I wanted children, then again when I married and took myself off the dating market, then yet again when my children were born.

Yes...when they came for the cripples...I said nothing. When they came for the gypsies...I said nothing. When they came for the Jews...I said nothing. When they came for me...there was no one left to say anything. Common sentiment.

Don't worry about abstract concepts of justice, fairness, or things that might matter to you or someone you might care about in the future. Stay in your little cocoon and vote your immediate interests. For your sake I hope you're WAY under 30 or you've wasted about 20 to 25 years.

First of all Billy1977, before being a woman I’m a person and the debt and government encroachment is a direct threat to our way of life in the US. So if my uterus does decide to bring a straight or gay child into the world, then I’d like there to be some option for them other than serfdom.

PS. On the abstract concept of justice and fairness... how fair is it for me to be busting my arse to make a living just for the govt. to take what I make and redistribute it? My mother in law used to own a liquor store in a poor town (everyone was on welfare after the old paper mills shut down and moved out b/c of the unions etc.) and the first of the month when the welfare checks came in was the best day for lottery, booze, cigs, and blunt wraps sales. Nice to enjoy Sec 8 housing, EBT cards, free cell phones, healthcare on the sweat of my brow (I do believe in safety nets but most of these people are lifers milking the system). So nothing hardens you to the BS of the left more than seeing their welfare policies at work everyday.

If you're aganst welfare, fine, I respect that (although non governmental studies show that abuse is rare). However, at least be consistent. Welfare spending is a drop in the bucket compared to middle class mortgage interest rate deductions and tax loopholes for millionnaires. If you're against government largesse, go after the significant amounts, not the pennies spent on welfare.

I pay American taxes even though I no longer live in the US. Is this fair, that I should be subsidizing millionnaires' tax breaks?

Welfare abuse is high. I don't need a "study" to tell me otherwise, and if you spend a little time down in the dumps of Orange, Massachusetts in the liquor store business instead of Paris, you will know exactly what I mean. You can claim disability by claiming to be a drunk and the number of people on disability has skyrocketed. If the state tries to turn you down then you get a state appointed attorney to sue the state to get you on it. The state workers don't care b/c the more people on it the more job security they have and the democrats love it b/c the more power they have in the bread and circus. My dear friend is a union working mental health counselor for these people and you would be amazed at the fraud. Of course he's voting democrat b/c his job relies on this system.

Also, my parents live offshore and have to pay taxes on income over $100k (i think used to be $80k but maybe rules changed not sure) and anything under is tax free. I think it's okay considering when sh*t hits the fan in their banana republic they will be waiting for the embassy helicopters to take them out... so they basically pay taxes to the US as insurance so they can always go back. Perhaps they could just get rid of their citizenships if they want.

I think they should cut it all. Cut the mortgage and interest deductions, close the loopholes, cut the useless govt. agencies we don't need, cut cut cut. It's going to hurt and I hope Romney has the guts to make the cuts and be respected long after he's gone vs. trying to be the popular guy now like BO. Maybe I'm part of a generation with nothing to lose.... Some of us want handouts and some of us want the govt. to retreat.

Welfare abuse is high. I don't need a "study" to tell me otherwise, and if you spend a little time down in the dumps of Orange, Massachusetts in the liquor store business instead of Paris, you will know exactly what I mean. You can claim disability by claiming to be a drunk and the number of people on disability has skyrocketed. If the state tries to turn you down then you get a state appointed attorney to sue the state to get you on it. The state workers don't care b/c the more people on it the more job security they have and the democrats love it b/c the more power they have in the bread and circus. My dear friend is a union working mental health counselor for these people and you would be amazed at the fraud. Of course he's voting democrat b/c his job relies on this system.

Also, my parents live offshore and have to pay taxes on income over $100k (i think used to be $80k but maybe rules changed not sure) and anything under is tax free. I think it's okay considering when sh*t hits the fan in their banana republic they will be waiting for the embassy helicopters to take them out... so they basically pay taxes to the US as insurance so they can always go back. Perhaps they could just get rid of their citizenships if they want.

I think they should cut it all. Cut the mortgage and interest deductions, close the loopholes, cut the useless govt. agencies we don't need, cut cut cut. It's going to hurt and I hope Romney has the guts to make the cuts and be respected long after he's gone vs. trying to be the popular guy now like BO. Maybe I'm part of a generation with nothing to lose.... Some of us want handouts and some of us want the govt. to retreat.

This generation may not be placard wielding activists or selfish slackers, but perhaps they could be considered "slacktivisits" what with their twitter and facebook being new sources of expressing their frustrations, concerns and "likes." But then again, putting too much emphasis on social media as an indicator of political activity is questionable too.
Maybe this generation, hit with a terrible recession, two wars, polarized country and subsequently put of by politics may turn out to be more thoughtful individuals, perhaps jaded at times but also grounded in reality when assessing and addressing the complex problems of our world. I know Kim Kardashian mania and the likes contradicts such an assertion but one can only "hope."

'This generation' is all that we have and we will make the change. The 'previous generation' like yours, put us in this mess. Leaving us with trillions of dollars of debt. An economic system that sucks the natural resources from the earth. Plagued the business environment with white collar criminals. Murdered millions in war. And are still, currently, doing a horrilbe job. 'This generation' is waiting for 'your generation' to retire!